Marshall MF350

I packed up My Gibson SG, Fender Limited edition Fat Strat w/active EMGs and my GNX3 and headed for my local Guitar Center and Sam Ash to check out the 'The Big Amps". It was kinda fun watching them inventory my stuff and fill out the paperwork. This has to be some of the tightest security I've ever seen! I tried every high gain amp and cab combo I could. I mean Crate, Mesa Boogie, Randall, Marshall, Vox and a couple 'off' brands. Honestly, every one of the major brands ROCKED BIG TIME. I wanted a couple of them, but I'm not rich. They all had good points and poor points. I have a Crate 120w combo, but I was after some sort of stack and wanted higher volume (read in Tim 'Tool Time' Taylor type POWER VOLUME). I didn't want to pay for a full stack, but wanted the sound and power. I got it, This was the Amp for me.

The FX loop is way cool. I also like the Amp2 mid three way switch, the EQ mid works with it, both Amps scoop switches work with the EQs too. Having tube preamps means it sounds better loud. This bad boy is LOUD. I chose the 400A cab as to get the full 350 watts from a half stack. I thought the MF cabs easily sounded the best with the MF head, and I tried other cabs because the MF cab is a couple hundred bucks more. I try and get the most for my money. The 400A cab is 8ohms. The 400 cab needs to be plugged into the number 2 plug. The 280 cab in #1 for half stack or both for full stack. There's a chart on the back of the head. This is to match up the impedence of the speaker cab to the amp. The 280 at half stack is 235watts, still not shabby. The angled (A) cab produces a more cutting upper mid and treble that I liked over the (base) B cab. When you 'tweak' the controls for the first time turn the knob quickly from side to side to understand the amount of variation of the tonal control. You can make the amp sound bad to you (to each his own 'bad') by over adjusting the tone from your liking. The Marshall has a definate 'sweet' spot. There is just that much adjustment available in the tones. The manual is available from the Marshall web site. Pay attention to the hints and tips. The balanced outputs for silent recording are awesome. I get the tones through the recorder and don't have to worry about the cab volume. I do have to add bass if I don't mike the cab due to the deep sound of the cab vs. straight to the recorder through the head. I also hook up my amps the the PA and this feature makes it a breeze. I play every style of Rock and Blues and I can get whatever tone I want out of the Mode Four. I also get those tones at extremely high volume. Too Cool

I had to buy a clamp on console light for the head strap handle and color in the dots on the adjustment knobs to see them at low light levels. I think I'll hit my local gun shop for 'dots' like you use on night sights. Marshall should do this. I had to tighten my knobs when I got it. It needs one more handle on each side of the cab as it's heavy. Don't expect your girl friend to help you, no offense ladies, but my wife could really hurt herself tryin' to help me muscle this beast up on stage. The cab weighs in at about 150lbs.

Please, it's a Marshall. It is extremely heavy as it weighs in at about 150lbs.
Seems tough as hell. No major brand of amp I know if is built 'cheap', or nobody would use them due to the high replacement cost.

As far as looks go this is one badass amp.
It's beautiful as well as intimidating. I love the tones and the volume of my Marshall Mode Four Half Stack w/400A cab.
I'm already recording with it. I swear sometimes she....it gives me wood.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Guitar Center in Danvers, MA for a total of about $2,100.

It's loud! A real meaty overdrive sound that is sure to satisfy metal-heads. The clean also excellent, unaduldtered tone. The reverb is nothing to rave about, it's an eery sort of reverb that gets the job done. I prefer Amp 1 which is the JCM 900 portion of the amp, with the gain turned up and those becoming saturated it's pure, biting aggression that will make your ear drums beg for mercy. It's also a very cool looking amp, and the cabs are bigger than any marshall before, by 3 inches, and certainly bigger than any cab I've ever seen. And it sounds the same at any volume.

The four modes aren't quite independent, the bass, treble and so on work for clean and crunch in amp 1, and for OD1 and OD2 in amp 2. What I mean is that amp 1 and amp 2 have one set of options for two "seperate" channels. No standby, but a "tuner mute" button for silent tuning which I use in the same manner as a standby switch.

Like a rock. This amp is all about power, in its presence, its tone, and its physical structure. Hunks of gold steel for knobs, I think altogether it weighs about 140lbs.

This amp is metallic fury. If you are not a metal-head this may not be the right amp for you.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

The Marshall Mode 4 was hyped to be a great hybrid tube/solid state amplifier for the heavier metal styles that were popular at the time of the amp's introduction (mid 2000's). It features the following specs:

350W hybrid output
2-amps-in-one design
Dual independent preamp stages with separate ECC83 valves
Both amp types have 2 footswitchable modes
Amp 1 offers Clean and Crunch modes
Amp 2 delivers 2 distinct overdrives

It's claimed to have two separate amps built right in for the ultimate in "modern versatility." Amp one houses Clean and Crunch modes, so it's designed for more low gain, classic applications. Amp two is where things get heavy... this side houses the OD1 and OD2 modes. The amp also features a reverb for each channel, an effects loop and and separate EQ controls for each channel (bass, middle, treble), plus an additional presence and resonance to act as a master EQ control set.


UTILIZATION

The amp is not difficult to set up tones for by any means. It's easy enough to figure out how everything works and get tones going. However, getting GOOD tones won't happen easily. This amp, with the exception of the clean channel (and to a lesser extent, the crunch channel), was possibly the worst sounding Marshall I've ever used.

The clean channel was not too bad. It's honestly no better or worse than the cleans you would find on a DSL or JVM but compared to the atrocity that is "Amp 2" it sounds fine. There was a decent low end and that archetypal scooped sort of midrange tone, with a slightly glassy high end. Applying some reverb got some decent jazz or blues tones, especially with a Les Paul style guitar. The crunch channel had a decent vibe for seventies arena rock if you turned the gain up, or old school blues if you turned it down. It was a bit buzzy and compressed, but not nearly as much as the OD1/OD2 channels.

The OD1/OD2 channels were horrible. Definitely a "what were they thinking?" type of sound. OD1 had absolutely no definition or sustain, and the resulting tone was a buzzy, thin, flat sounding mess. Turning the EQ controls simply seemed to do very little. The amp's default texture seems to be a very piercing top end with a scooped mids... which is like nails on a chalkboard to me. OD2 was basically the same thing... but with even less midrange and even more gain. It had a bit more sustain which was nice for a nu-metal shred thing, but that's such a narrow focus for an amp that claims to be so versatile that I can't award it any points...

SOUNDS

I tried the amplifier with a Strat, Les Paul, and Godin LG (Canadian made guitar that's very similar to an LP, but with 5-way selection like a Strat). It was being used through an Avatar 4x12 with Celestion speakers.

The clean tones were probably my favourite, since they were the only useable sound there. The crunch tones from the Crunch channel weren't too bad, but since I don't enjoy playing AC/DC riffs at arena volume, those types of sounds weren't very useful to me.

OD1/OD2 were a disgrace. They made a DSL401 (an amp I've claimed for years is my least favourite Marshall by a LONG shot) sound fairly good. Everything that was bad about an overdrive channel was present in this amp, sadly. It was buzzy, thin, lacked sustain and gain on OD1 and was FAR too compressed and scooped sounding in nature. It sounded like a can of bees were inside the amp, buzzing away angrily at what the tones were doing to their ears... Using the EQ controls only seemed to make it more compressed and/or piercing which didn't do anything to help.

OVERALL OPINION

Don't even consider this amp. It's one of biggest cases of "false advertising" I've ever seen. "Modern versatility?" Yeah... good luck with that Marshall. This amp does about three sounds total and only one of them is remotely adequate. It's VERY easy to see why this amp gets slammed online, and more importantly why Marshall discontinued it. High wattage "hybrid" amps designed for scooped metal tones never do sound good (this and the Fender Metalhead are top contenders for this award) for anything but bedroom metalcore played at arena volumes.

I give it a 2 because of the at least decent nature of the clean channel only. Otherwise... it's unusable. Stay away!

300 watt hybrid, 4 channels, at least 2 double ...
The sound Mtal the white zombie, NIN ...
The power is adjustable in the back,
1 reverb and filter "matrix" 3 positions.

USE

Sound standard from light to crunch until very big sound,
well-typed rock / metal,
The hard part is to quilibrer 4 channels at the same time difficult to use ...

SONORITS

With a good sound, the sound is overkill.
The coarse!
The sound is very modern, anything but vintage ...

NOTICE GLOBAL

Garage / blues refrain, the sound of the Sonics is not in this amp!
A big sound typ ...

Happiness for the whole family ...